Yangmingshan Chiang Kai-shek statue beheaded

Two members of a pro-independence group called the Taiwan Nation Founding Engineering Team hold up the head of a decapitated Chiang Kai-shek statue yesterday.

Photo provided the Taiwan Nation Founding Engineering Team

A statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in Taipei’s Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) was yesterday found decapitated.

The statue in Yang-ming Park was beheaded and had red paint smeared over it with a message saying: “228 mastermind” and “serial killer.”

A pro-independence group called the Taiwan Nation Founding Engineering Team (台灣建國工程隊) claimed responsibility for the incident.

“Chiang Kai-shek was the mastermind of the 228 Massacre. It is a universally accepted fact that he was one of the ‘big four murderers’ in history,” the group said in a statement.

“Allowing statues of murderer Chiang to be erected and worshiped in Taiwan is a disgrace,” it added.

The move was to “appease the ghost” of Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta — known among Taiwanese as the “Father of the Chianan Irrigation System,” the group said, in reference to the beheading of a Hatta statue near Tainan’s Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫) on Sunday.

“Cut down one of ours and we will cut down countless of yours,” the group said.